D&D (2024) DMG 2024: Is The Sandbox Campaign Dead?

[Belen]

Bastions in 5.5 don't work that way to me, because they are too divorced from the setting. Their mechanics are more important than their narrative role IMO.

Oh, the Bastion mechanics are not great but are a good start for me. I would have to make edits to them to allow them in game.

 

[Reynard]

I can say that Minecraft is a sandbox

You can't use the computer game definition of sandbox, I don't think.

because what people do is restricted by the rules of the game but there are no real goals other than the ones that are 100% established by the players.

Nothing is ever 100%. At the very least, the group has agreed to play in a certain setting and genre and milieu with a certain set of goals for play. That doesn't make it not a sandbox.

In my games I'm still establishing the goals, even if I dangle multiple goals. I'm also applying external pressures and threats to move the game forward. The end result isn't quite a linear campaign because if they unexpectedly manage to kill a BBEG or thwart their plans, there isn't going to be a Deus Machina to keep the BBEG alive but it ends up following my high level fuzzy campaign outline the majority of the time.

That and I have a pretty episodic approach to my campaigns, when a group picks a direction I try to keep them more or less on the chosen path for a bit. There have been sessions where things go wildly sideways but those tend to be the exception to the rule, especially depending on the group.

Or maybe I'm running a sandbox campaign but we just have different definitions of what that means.

I think it fits the definition well enough. We can argue around the edges of course. But you also don't have to call it a sandbox. But it sounds like if I were playing that game I would feel like i was playing a sandbox D&D game.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Do they? That's awesome! I missed that when I had a chance to skim the book.

Bastions have people who come with them. But 5e has always had hirelings: page 159 of the 2014 PHB. Then Tasha’s added sidekicks, and it’s always been possible to play multiple characters.

The reason they fell out of usage is turns stated to take a lot longer from 3rd edition onwards, so you really want to keep the number of party members low. But you can bring your pocket army if you like, just don’t expect to be popular with the other players.

 

[Oofta]

You can't use the computer game definition of sandbox, I don't think.

Nothing is ever 100%. At the very least, the group has agreed to play in a certain setting and genre and milieu with a certain set of goals for play. That doesn't make it not a sandbox.

I think it fits the definition well enough. We can argue around the edges of course. But you also don't have to call it a sandbox. But it sounds like if I were playing that game I would feel like i was playing a sandbox D&D game.

Is something like Curse of Strahd a sandbox to you? I haven't read the module but when we played it we had some intro scenes, told the basic end goal that if we wanted out of Ravenloft we'd have to deal with Strahd and then were just given a map. But we all knew the end goal and the encounters we had were, of course, pre-written set pieces.

 

[Reynard]

Is something like Curse of Strahd a sandbox to you? I haven't read the module but when we played it we had some intro scenes, told the basic end goal that if we wanted out of Ravenloft we'd have to deal with Strahd and then were just given a map. But we all knew the end goal and the encounters we had were, of course, pre-written set pieces.

I have not played it.

I brought up Rime before. I bought it because the marketing made me think it was a sandbox. What it turned out to be was a tabletop CRPG. That isn't necessarily bad, mind you, but not what I was expecting. it's use of milestones to force players outr of areas and farther along the main plot felt very much like an Obsidian CRPG. Again, not bad, but not a sandbox.

In the end, the thing we often forget when we use the "sandbox" analogy is that by definition, it is a box. That is, it is in fact constrained. There is just freedom within those constraints. And the number and kinds of toys in the sandbox is not infinite.

 

[SkidAce]

I think there’s something to be said for the idea that Vecna brings out the worst adventures in designers.

Vecna Lives, Vecna Reborn, Die Vecna Die and now Eve of Ruin. Just not a great history of actual published adventures there.

A lot of people like some of those, but boy were the reviews bad when they came out.

 

[Umbran]

Do they? That's awesome! I missed that when I had a chance to skim the book.

There's like a paragraph in the bastion section in which they discuss the people who work in the bastion. They aren't general purpose hirelings.

 

[TiQuinn]

A lot of people like some of those, but boy were the reviews bad when they came out.

I’ve just found that if you take every adventure design mistake that someone writes about in a blog or a book, you’ll find a perfect example in those adventures. Railroads with no ability for players to deviate, overuse of deus ex machina, long, long blocks of narrative text with players as bystanders, and all in service of making this one particular NPC, Vecna, be the evil mastermind of masterminds in D&D.

 

[Reynard]

Just because it has been a while: Matt Coville's definition and discussion of what a sandbox is matches my conception very closely.

 

[pukunui]

Oops. Sorry. After I wrote that I wondered if maybe you were responding to someone who has me blocked.

If someone has put you on ignore, then they shouldn’t be able to see your thread, let alone post in it. Right?

I brought up Rime before. I bought it because the marketing made me think it was a sandbox. What it turned out to be was a tabletop CRPG. That isn't necessarily bad, mind you, but not what I was expecting. it's use of milestones to force players outr of areas and farther along the main plot felt very much like an Obsidian CRPG. Again, not bad, but not a sandbox.

Mm. I think the best example of an official 5e sandbox adventure is Princes of the Apocalypse.

Tomb of Annihilation only works as a sandbox if you ignore the ticking clock death curse plot and the eponymous tomb.

Storm King’s Thunder has a nice sandboxy bit in the middle where the PCs are free to explore the region at their whim. When I ran this adventure, the group included two players who are big Skyrim fans, and they absolutely loved that part of SKT.

You could also argue that Dungeon of the Mad Mage is a megadungeon sandbox. I mean, unlike every other 5e adventure, it has zero plot. There are just some optional quests and some suggested motivations for Halaster and that’s it. The level limits on the portals do restrict the sandboxy nature of it somewhat, but they are not way enough to ignore, which is what I did.